The "sunny 16" rule is a pretty good estimate for exposure to get detail in the moon. f/16 at 1/your film ISO. You could overexpose by one or even two stops from that, to get the surroundings a little lighter, and still keep detail in the moon. Remember though that with a maximum focal length of 80mm the moon is always going to be quite small in the frame. So you may want to bias your exposure more toward the rest of the scene. My longest lens is a 300mm and that still doesn't result in a big, impressive moon (if that's what you're after).

Francois, It's actually the silhouette of the tree branches that i want... the moon just adds a little bit more spark to the photo. The moon also lights up the clouds and fog which makes a really interesting sight.

At the moment, the moon is gibbous. I have a really, really big tree in my front yard and i was wondering how i would get a silhouette of the tree and the moon in the shot? I would to get the details on the moon such as the "seas" and possibly craters.The silhouette is possible because the surrounding sky is much lighter than the shadows of trees... in addition to the night sky is the moon, which will light it ever more.So what should the time and aperture settings be?

Thank you... If you need to know my equipment, i have a Canon Elan 7 EOS 33. With a Canon 28-80mm f/3.5-5.6 II

Andrew,...It might sound a bit obvious but I have always found with night shots that its important to keep in mind that one needs to meter from mid-tones,...in your case,the clouds. You can let the shadows go black;...it IS night time after all!....so dark shadows and sillouette trees are what you want I presume?

Then thats fairly straightforward,...meter from the highlights and you WILL get a silouette of anything not illuminated. The way to get a 'grip' on this is to put the camera on manual and 'play about' with it by taking readings from different parts of the scene. This wil give you a feel for the contrast range of scenes. Also, although it probably sounds boring, make a note of what exposure you give on difficult shots along with where in the scene you metered from,...this is the way to really gather vital knowledge/experience. Every serious photog. has had to do this at some point.